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Journal of Education for Business
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
An Empirical Study of Gift Authorships in Business
Journals
Edgar J. Manton & Donald E. English
To cite this article: Edgar J. Manton & Donald E. English (2008) An Empirical Study of Gift Authorships in Business Journals, Journal of Education for Business, 83:5, 283-287, DOI: 10.3200/JOEB.83.5.283-287
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JOEB.83.5.283-287
Published online: 07 Aug 2010.
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uringthelasthalfofthe20thcen-tury,therewassignificantgrowth inthepercentageofcoauthoredarticles in business journals. Several research-ershaveanalyzedthetrendinincreased author collaboration in business jour-nals and have found increasing levels of multiple authorships over the years. PetryandKerr(1981)reviewed15busi-nessjournalsandfoundthattheaverage numberofauthorsperarticlegrewfrom 1.57to1.77between1973and1977.
FieldsandSwayne(1988)analyzed theJournalofConsumerResearch,the Journal of Marketing, and theJournal ofMarketingResearchforcoauthorship trends. They found that between the periods1960–1964and1985–1986the percentageofarticleswithtwoauthors increased from 15% to 44%, and arti-cles with three or more authors rose from 2% to 21%. Floyd, Schroeder, and Finn (1994) found that the per-centageofmultiauthoredarticlesinthe Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, and Administrative Science Quarterly grew from18.3%inthe1960sto47.7%inthe 1970sandcontinuedtogrowto60.1% inthe1980s.
Hudson (1996) studied the growing trendinmultiauthoredjournalarticlesin thefieldofeconomicsandreportedthat in 1950, 6% of the articles published in theJournal of Political Economy and8%ofthearticlespublishedinthe
American Economic Review had more than one author. By 1993, the propor-tion of multiauthored papers in these two journals had grown to 39.6% and 54.9%,respectively.
MantonandEnglish(2007)foundthat between 1960 and 1962, single ship was the dominant form of author-shipinbusinessjournals.By2000–2002, dualauthorshipwasthedominantform ofauthorshipinbusinessjournals.Even thepercentageofthreeormoreauthors perarticlewashigherthanthatofsingle authorship in many journals. The vast majorityofbusinessjournalarticlesare nowcoauthored(Manton&English).
Background
Whathascausedthistrendincollabo- rationinpublishingbusinessjournalarti-cles?A major factor is the evolution of themissionsofuniversitiesfromprimar-ilyteachingtoincreasinglyincorporating facultyscholarlyendeavorsamongtheir goals.Inaddition,thevariousaccrediting agencies have increased the emphasis on faculty research endeavors in their standards.Forbusinessfaculty,theAsso-ciation to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB) has had significant impact on the scholarly endeavorsofbusinessfaculty(Manton& English,2006).
There is a need for faculty to join with other faculty on research projects
AnEmpiricalStudyofGiftAuthorships
inBusinessJournals
EDGARJ.MANTON DONALDE.ENGLISH
DEPARTMENTOFBUSINESSADMINISTRATIONANDMIS TEXASA&MUNIVERSITY
COMMERCE,TEXAS
D
ABSTRACT. Theauthorssurveyed authorsofbusinessjournalarticleswho hadworkedwithcoauthorsat30colleges ofbusiness,regardingtheirexperiencewith giftorundeservedauthorships.Of433 respondingfacultyauthors,morethan35% reportedhavingcollaboratedwithacoau-thorwhohaddoneverylittleworkona publishedarticle,andnearly10%respond-edthattheyhadacoauthoronapublication whohaddonenowork.Ofrespondents, 95%reportedcollaboratingwithacoauthor inthesamediscipline.Oftheauthors,66% indicatedhavingworkedwithacoauthor inanotherbusinessdiscipline,andabout 33%statedthattheyhadcollaboratedwith acoauthorfromadisciplineexternalto business.
Keywords:academicdishonesty,coauthor, guestauthorships,undeservedauthorships, unearnedauthorships
Copyright©2008HeldrefPublications
to offer additional skills. As business disciplinesexpand,itisdifficultforone researchertohavecompleteknowledge of a particular business field. Accord-ingly,onemayjoinwithanotherperson who complements his or her knowl-edge within the same discipline. In some cases, two business disciplines areinvolvedinaresearchproject(e.g., accountingandfinance);membersfrom each field may decide to collaborate andapplytheirspecialtiestotheproject (Schroeder,Langreh,&Floyd,1995).
Moreandmorebusinessresearchis reachingbeyondtraditionalbusinessdis-ciplinesandextendingintootherfields such as computer science, psychology, sociology,andeducation.Suchresearch requiresexternalexpertisetoprovidethe necessaryknowledge.Specializedskills involvingtheuseofmath,statistics,or computer software may require adding a coauthor possessing such skills. An authormaybeaddedbecauseofhisor herknowledgeandskillsregardingthe research process or the knowledge of documentingresearchresultsandknow-inghowtocompleteapublishedarticle (Manton&English,2006).
These are logical and valid reasons for collaboration on business journal articles. Technology has also played a part in allowing such coauthorships to readily be arranged even when there are great distances between coauthors. Higher-qualityjournalarticlescanresult fromsuchcollaborativearrangements.
However, also possible are gift coauthorships by which faculty mem-bers accord their friends, colleagues, or acquaintances an undeserved posi-tion as a coauthor on a journal article that they have prepared for publica-tion. This occurs when a person who has performed very little or no work on a published article is identified as a coauthor. Such coauthorships may be gratuitously granted by the article’s author to aid another faculty member infurtheringhisorhercareer(e.g.,by obtainingapromotion,tenure,orasal-ary merit increase). Such authorships are intellectually dishonest and unethi-cal. They may result in unfair rewards being granted to undeserving faculty members. If known to other college faculty, such rewards would be highly detrimentaltomorale.
Otherfieldshavehadproblemswith undeserved coauthorships and have developedcriteriaforproperlyidentify- ingauthorsonpublishedworks.Medi-cine is a field that has experienced a high level of undeserved authorships in its published articles (King, 2000). The International Committee of Medi-calEditorshasidentifiedthefollowing criteria for proper acknowledgment of anauthor(Bennet&Taylor,2003): 1.substantial contribution to the
con- ceptionanddesignofstudy,acquisi-tionofdata,orinterpretationofdata; 2.draftingthestudymanuscriptorcriti-cally revising it for important intel-lectualcontent;and
3.givingfinalapprovaloftheversionto bepublished.
To be identified as an author on a medicalarticle,oneshouldhaveplayed a significant role on the production of thepapertobesubmittedforpublication. He or she should have contributed sig-nificantlytotheconceptionofthestudy, thedesignofthestudy,theacquisitionof thestudy’sdata,ortheinterpretationof thedataandshouldhaveparticipatedin the writing, revising, and final approval ofthearticle.Theworkdoesnothaveto involveequalparticipationbyallauthors, butthereshouldbesignificantparticipa-tionbyeachauthor(Endersby,1996).
The field of business has no such criteria.Itislefttotheauthorstoiden-tify who is an author. With the rapid increase in collaboration in business journal articles in the past 40 years, it is incumbent on business colleges to determine to what extent undeserved giftauthorshipscurrentlyexist.
Inapilotstudyforthepresentwork, involving the faculty at 15 midsized collegesofbusinessinTexas,wefound that 18.5% of the 146 faculty mem-ber respondents who had coauthored articles reported having worked with a coauthor who did no work on a pub-lishedarticle.Ofthefacultycoauthors, 35%reportedthattheyhadworkedwith a coauthor who had done very little work on a published article (Manton &English,2006).Ifthislevelofunde-served authorship is found to extend universallytocollegesofbusiness,itis necessarythatthosecollegesrecognize andcorrecttheproblem.
The primary purpose of the present study was to determine the extent to which coauthoring faculty will report working with undeserving coauthors. Wealsowishedtodeterminetheimpact of the AACSB on faculty publication efforts, the preferred listing arrange-mentsforcoauthors,andthereasonsfor
4.What is the extent of coauthorship arrangements with coauthors who havedoneverylittleworkonapub-lishedarticle?
5.What is the extent of coauthorship arrangements with coauthors who have done no work on a published article?
METHOD
We decided to survey all AACSB-accreditedcollegesofbusinesswith100 or fewer faculty and no doctoral pro-gram.Webelievedthattheserelatively smallerschoolswouldhavebeenunder the most pressure in recent years to achieveAACSB accreditation and that theywouldhavebeentheschoolsmost affected by the changing missions of universities to place heavier emphasis onfacultyresearch.Largerschoolswith doctoral programs were likely to have achieved AACSB accreditation much earlier and would likely have had a significantemphasisonfacultyresearch overanextensiveperiodoftime.
We identified 234 schools and requested participation by all 234 schools because we thought that the participationratemightbelow.Letters requesting participation were sent to the deans of each school and included acopyofthequestionnairetobeused, thecoverlettertobesenttothefaculty, andapostcardbywhichthedeanscould indicate their agreement to participate. Iftheyagreedtoparticipate,theywere
askedtoindicatethenumberoftenured and tenure-track faculty on their staff. Only32schoolsresponded,2ofwhich declinedtoparticipate.Thus,30schools participatedinthesurvey,andatotalof 1,762facultyreceivedthesurvey.
We mailed the deans or their desig-nated representatives sufficient copies of the cover letter, questionnaire, and return envelopes for their tenured and tenure-trackfaculty.Weaskedthedeans or their representatives to deliver the questionnaires and the cover letters to thetenuredandtenure-trackfacultyvia thecollege’smaildistributionsystem.
Thequestionnaireincludedquestions regarding rank and tenure status. The respondentswereaskedtoidentifytheir specialization. A question was asked dealing with the impact ofAACSB on faculty research endeavors.The faculty were asked to indicate their preference for the order of identifying authors on apublishedarticle.Theywerealsoque-ried about the reasons why they had decidedtopublishwithanotherfaculty member.
Themainquestionsofthestudywere thefollowing:
1.Have you ever worked with a coau-thorwhohasdoneverylittleworkon apublication?
2.Haveyoueverworkedwithacoauthor whodidnoworkonapublication?
RESULTS
Of the 1,762 faculty members who receivedaquestionnaire,442responded; thisgaveusaresponserateof25.1%. We feel that the 442 responses repre-sentalargepercentageofthecoauthors at the colleges because many of those originally surveyed may not have pub-lished or may have pubpub-lished articles without a coauthor.A sorting question was included in the questionnaire that requestedthosewhohadnotpublished andthosewhohadnotpublishedwitha coauthortostopatthatpointandreturn the questionnaire. Only 9 respondents didthis.Theremaining433respondents indicatedthattheyhadhadinvolvement withcoauthors.Thus,webelievethata high percentage of the publishing fac-ultywhoworkedwithcoauthorsatthe 30 colleges of business is represented bythe433respondents.
Of the 442 total respondents, 193 (43.6%) were professors, 125 (28.3%) were associate professors, and 121 (27.4%) were assistant professors. Of all, 3 did not respond. Of all, 300 (67.9%) had tenure, and 134 (30.3%) were on tenure track. Also, 8 did not respondtothisquestion.
The respondents were generally representative of traditional business disciplines. The greatest number of respondents were from a management or management-related discipline (see Table1).
Weaskedallrespondentstoindicate theimpactthattheAACSBhadhadon research endeavors of the faculty. Of all, 283 respondents, or 64.0%, indi-catedthattheaccreditingbodyhadhad very significant or significant impact on business faculty research. Of all, 93, or 21.1%, indicated somewhat of animpact,only32,or7.2%,responded thatithadhadnoimpact,whereas29,or 6.6%,wereundecided(seeTable2).
As to the preferred listing order of authors on a published journal article, most of the 433 coauthor respondents (278, or 64.2%) indicated that the per-sonwhohasdonethemostworkshould other reasons category included “rotat-ing authors” and “order determined by theauthors”(seeTable3).
We asked the coauthors about their coauthoring arrangements with other
faculty members. The responses are listed in Table 4. The vast majority of coauthors—95.2%—hadworkedwitha coauthorinthesamebusinessdiscipline, whereas 289, representing about two-thirds of the respondents, had worked withacoauthorinanotherbusinessdis-cipline.Ofall,139(32.1%)respondents indicated that they had coauthored an articlewithapersonwhowasnotofa businessdiscipline.
Of all respondents, 190, or 43.8%, reported working with personnel pos-sessing math or statistical skills as a coauthorandindicatedneedingmathor statistical expertise. Computer or soft-ware skills were reported as reasons forcoauthorshipbyonly94,or21.7%, to determine the extent of undeserved coauthorshipsinbusinessjournals:How extensive are gift authorships that are given to undeserving authors for aid in career progression or that are given because authors who did not carry out theiragreed-onresponsibilityonaproject werenotremovedfromauthorship?Table 5reflectsundeservedcoauthorships.
Ofallrespondents,154(35.6%)indi-cated that they had worked with coau-thors who performed very little work on a published journal article, and 40 (9.2%) respondents indicated that they hadcoauthorswhohadbeenidentified on published articles but had actually performednowork.
TABLE1.AcademicDisciplineofRespondents
Specialization n %
Management 104 23.5
Accounting 81 18.3
Marketing 66 15.0
Economics 62 14.0
Finance 45 10.2
Managinginformationsystems 43 9.7
Businesslaw 10 2.3
Statistics/quantitativemethods 7 1.6
Other(realestate,communication,
entrepreneurship,hospitalmanagement) 19 4.3
Noresponse 5 1.1
Total 442 100.0
Gift authorships are intellectually dishonestanddeceptive,andtheydilute credit for a research endeavor. Such activity may result in unfair and unde-served rewards from faculty perfor-mance evaluation procedures and may cause morale problems among faculty. With the rapid increase in coauthored articles,theextentofundeservedauthor-shipsinbusinessjournalsisanareathat shouldbestudied.
DISCUSSION
Weconductedasurveyof30colleges ofbusinessincluding1,762tenuredand tenure-track business faculty to deter-mine the impact of theAACSB on the publication efforts of faculty, the pre-ferred arrangement of authors on jour-nal articles, and the reasons for coau-thoringanarticle.Themainpurposeof the present study was to determine the levelofundeservedcoauthorships.Such authorshipsareunethicalandrepresent abreachofintegrity.
The majority (64%) of the 442 respondents indicated that theAACSB has had a significant impact on their publicationefforts.Ofthese,20%stated that the impact of AACSB had been verysignificant.Theformofcoauthor-shiplistingthatthemajorityofthe433 coauthor respondents (64%) preferred waslistingtheauthorwhodidthemost workfirst.Adistantsecondatapproxi-mately17%wasthealphabeticallisting ofauthors.
Mostofthe433coauthorrespondents (95%)reportedworkingwithauthorsin thesamebusinessdiscipline.Twothirds statedthattheyhadworkedwithauthors from a business discipline other than theirown.Morethan40%ofthecoau-thors reported needing to add a person whohadmathematicsorstatisticsskills. Aboutonethirdofthefacultyresearch-ersindicatedthattheyhadworkedwith TABLE2.PerceivedImpactoftheAACSBonResearch
AACSBinfluence n %
Verysignificant 107 24.2
Significant 176 39.8
Somewhat 93 21.1
Notatall 32 7.2
Undecided 29 6.6
Noresponse 5 1.1
Total 442 100.0
Note.AACSB=AssociationtoAdvanceCollegiateSchoolsofBusinessInternational.
TABLE3.PreferredOrderofListingCoauthors
Listingorder n %
Mostworkfirst 278 64.2
Alphabetical 73 16.9
Personconceptualizingresearchfirst 56 12.9
Mostseniormemberfirst 3 0.7
Otherreasons 18 4.2
Noresponse 5 1.1
Total 442 100.0
TABLE4.ArrangementsforCoauthorship
Coauthorshiparrangement n %
Coauthorinthesamediscipline 412 95.2
Coauthorinanotherbusinessfield 289 66.8
Specialistinmathorstatistics 190 43.8
Specialistinresearchdocumentation 141 32.6
Specialistinafieldoutsideofbusiness 139 32.1
Specialistincomputerorsoftware 94 21.7
TABLE5.UndeservedAuthorshipsResponses
Yes No Noresponse
Levelofwork n % n % n %
Verylittlework 154 35.6 275 63.5 4 0.9
Nowork 40 9.2 388 89.6 5 1.2
anotherfacultymemberwhohadsignif- icantknowledgeofpublicationprocess-es or research report documentation to getpublished.Anotheronethirdofthe authorsindicatedthattheyhadworked with a coauthor who was outside the businessfield.
The main purpose of the study was to determine the extent of undeserv-ingco-authorshipsinbusinessjournals. Gift authorships are inappropriate and unethical. A high percentage (35.6%) of respondents indicated that they had worked with an author who did very littleworkonapublishedwork.Further, almost10%indicatedthattheyhadhad a coauthor who actually performed no work on a published article.This find-ing seems to represent a serious prob-lemwithhowauthorsareidentifiedon publishedbusinessjournalarticles.
What is the impact of this practice? First, undeserved promotions, awards oftenure,andmeritpayincreasesmay result, with adverse effects on faculty morale.Second,accreditationreports— forbothregionalandAACSBaccredita-tion—would be overstated and contain exaggeratedorevenfraudulentclaimsof facultyauthorshipparticipation.Recent standardization changes by accredita-tion agencies call for universities to be completely accurate and honest in
their reports; gift authorships would not accurately reflect faculty participa-tioninscholarlyendeavors.Finally,the journals would not be accurately iden-tifying the authors in their published journal articles. Journal editors have a responsibility to accurately present to thepublicthosewhoareresponsiblefor the research work, methodology, and conclusionsofanypublishedwork.
Colleges of business and universi-ties need to address the issue of mul-tiple authorships to assure integrity in appropriatelyidentifyingcoauthors.An approach similar to that taken by the medical field would seem appropriate. Aforumofcollegedeanswithrepresen-tationfromtheAACSBandtheeditors ofbusinessjournalscoulddevelopand publish guidelines for appropriate and accurateauthorshipidentification.Busi-ness article authors could be asked to signstatementsattestingtohavingcon-tributedsignificantlytothepreparation ofaworksubmittedforpublication.
NOTES
Dr. Edgar J. Manton is a professor in the DepartmentofBusinessAdministrationandMIS atTexasA&MUniversity–Commerce.
Dr.DonaldE.Englishisaprofessorinandhead oftheDepartmentofBusinessAdministrationand MISatTexasA&MUniversity–Commerce.
Correspondence concerning this article should beaddressedtoDr.DonaldE.English,TexasA&M
University–Commerce,BusinessAdministrationand MIS,P.O.Box3011,Commerce,TX75429,USA.
E-mail:donald_english@tamu-commerce.edu
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